How things look through an Oregonian's eyes

September 29, 2011

I'm about to say some positive things about Salem -- the capital city of Oregon, where I've lived for thirty-four years. My usual attitude toward Salem (boring, sleepy, uncreative, lethargic) is reflected in a multitude of other blog posts.

But today was a warm, sunny late September day. I rode my maxi-scooter around town and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. That got me to thinking about how much I like some favorite Salem people and places.

Betsy at Hair Headquarters. A few blocks south of Mission, on Commercial Street, sits a small barber shop where I've been getting my hair cut since 1977, when I started to commute from Portland to a state job here. I can't imagine having my hair entrusted to anyone else but Betsy. Once she took a few months off for some ridiculous reason, like to have a baby or something. I was traumatized when I had to have my hair cut by someone else.

Betsy and I always have great conversations. Today we mostly talked about cars. The subjects are almost endless, because I've known Betsy for longer than I've been married to my second wife. In fact, almost longer than both of my marriages combined. The guy who took my place in the barber chair helped with our home's earthquake preparedness renovation. We had a nice chat while Betsy started on his own hair cut.

The small town where I grew up had a one-chair barber shop. Hair Headquarters reminds me of that wonderful atmosphere: men's magazines, few frills, good chance you'll run into someone you know. One (positive) difference: Betsy is better looking than the guy who cut my hair as a kid.

Venti's downtown. l haven't been to the new Venti's location on south Commercial yet, so my praise is directed at the Court Street location. I've been eating the Garlic-Sesame Tofu dish for a long time, starting when Venti's was in a hole in the wall-space across the street, in the Reed Opera House building.

Back then, there was no way a patron wasn't going to get up close and personal with both the cooks and the other customers. I enjoyed the repartee between the regulars and the staff. That intimacy is diluted now that Venti's has expanded. But I still see some of the same people who frequented Venti's v. 1.0 when I leave my Tai Chi class at Pacific Martial Arts (above Dairy Lunch on Court Street) and walk by Venti's v. 2.0.

The atmosphere still is pleasingly casual, quirky, and beer'y. Over the years the Garlic-Sesame Tofu dish has steadily improved. I had it tonight and say, Best Yet! The teriyaki'ish sauce is excellent. I like having a brown rice option. The broccoli, pea pods, and carrot slices are healthily plentiful, as are the bite-sized tofu chunks (big improvement over the previous tofu strips, which required cutting).

Venti's is my favorite place to eat in Salem. May you live long and prosper, Venti's v. 2.0 and 3.0 (which I do plan to visit soon).

Downtown Beanery. Yes, I have a Starbucks card. Also, a Starbucks iPhone app which I use to pay for my coffee because it seems cooler to hold my phone up to a scanner than to hand over my card.

But my true caffeinated love is the Downtown Beanery, conveniently located just half a block from my thrice-weekly Tai Chi classes. I don't know how much cosmic energy I'm invigorating myself with through Tai Chi, but I sure feel an energetic jolt every time my dearly beloved Thermos mug is filled to the brim by the Beanery baristas (who give a large 35 cent discount for using your own mug).

And not just from the caffeine. I'm energized by the Beanery's independent coffee house vibe, which is a heck of a lot more appealing than the Starbucks corporate atmosphere. I do a lot of blogging at a Beanery table, sipping from my mug, eating a muffin, enjoying the reliable wi-fi.

The Downtown Beanery feels almost like home. The staff are friendly, efficient, and accomodating. Yesterday a woman apologized for the length of time it took for me to get my bagel and cream cheese, because she'd toasted me a new one after over-cooking the first bagel. I told her that I eat mal-toasted bread made by myself all the time, but was appreciative nonetheless.

LifeSource Natural Foods. My wife and I would be semi-starving if it weren't for LifeSource Natural Foods' excellent deli section. We stop by quite a few times a week to see what tempting, healthy food item is lurking in the Deli. Then we graze on it for days afterward, postponing our home-cooking as long as possible, because almost always LifeSource does it better than we can.

The LifeSource staff are equally enjoyable. There seems to be little turnover at Salem's only genuine natural food store, seemingly because owner Alex Beamer and his wife have created a terrific working environment. I've been told that employees enjoy good benefits and profit sharing (plus, it seems, all the sample snacks they can eat; I know, because I'm frequently bumping into a staffer as I reach for a free goodie).

Kudos to Alex and LifeSource for being model Green'ies. Solar panels, recycling, low water usage -- all that stuff. When i mentioned to an employee that we'd recently bought a Nissan Leaf electric car, he told me that the Beamer's also had gotten one: blue, just like ours.

I'm thinking that we should form a Nissan Leaf gang of some sort. Maybe we could cruise around slowly in our Leafs with the windows down, arms hanging out the windows, smooth jazz blasting from the radio. Way cool. Just like some parts of Salem are, despite the overall blah'ness of this town.

September 27, 2011

So far as I know, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife still plans to kill two of the few remaining wolves in our state. The guy in charge of the wolf management program at ODFW deserves a raise, because he must be getting lots of phone calls and letters from wolf-lovers and wolf-haters.

Today I listened to my wife, Laurel, leave a message on his voice mail. She isn't happy with the planned wolf killing, to put it mildly, and wasn't shy about forcefully expressing her opinion.

Which I share.

It seems ridiculous that wildlife officials are willing to risk extinguishing Oregon's fragile wolf population (this killing will eliminate a breeding pair, likely leaving none) because a few cattle may have been predated upon.

What's more important, losing a few cows/calfs when there are about 960,000 of them in this state, or losing two of fourteen wolves? Adding to the ridiculousness, ranchers are compensated for confirmed wolf kills, so money isn't the issue here.

This really is a battle for the wild soul of Oregon.

That might sound overly dramatic, but I stand by that statement. As would, I'm sure, the activists who chained themselves to the ODFW doors in Salem today in a protest against the unnecessary wolf killings.

Good for them. I took part in sit-ins against the Vietnam War way back in the 1960's. The war was unjust, just as the wolf killings are. Sometimes it is necessary to take a dramatic stand when authorities are unable or unwilling to hear the voice of reason.

Are you listening, ODFW? You have the word "wildlife" in your organization's name. Oregonians love their wilderness, and they love the wildlife who inhabit that wilderness. Wolves included.

Not all ranchers are as wolfphobic as Todd Nash, who requested that the pair of wolves be killed after he claimed some livestock losses. Nash is one of many "welfare ranchers" who are happy to use public grazing lands at an absurdly minimal cost, yet get upset when the public asks them to co-exist with wolves who live on those lands.

Rancher Todd Nash is not happy about losing any of his cattle to the wolves. He had one confirmed wolf kill on a calf in the Spring of 2010 near where this photo was taken in the “Divide Country” of Eastern Wallowa County, (which has now been compensated by Defenders of Wildlife). He says he had as many as 15 unconfirmed kills last year when he was grazing his cows in this remote area, but there is no way to confirm the losses without evidence of a kill. Todd uses federal lease allotment grazing land in central wolf country.

The wildlife and public lands of Oregon belong to us all. Will we Oregonians be able to tell our children that we chose to be a model for other Western states and share the land with wolves, not just those species that don't inconvenience some of us?

There are quite a few interesting comments on Terrill's thoughts. Here's part of one from someone who knows the truth about welfare ranching on public lands.

Every wolf story brings out cattlemen to cry the "Red Riding Hood" story to a public in the city totally ignorant of the predator role in sound management, and healthy populations, wildlife and domestic critters. The destruction of our rangelands by livestock grazing includes destroying water sources and "poisoning" of free flowing waters by cattle and sheep- like Giaridia infestations that have made almost all streams in the west either "suspect" or outright dangerous.

Significant in the article is the ridiculously low $1.35 per AUM fee ranchers pay on public land, "moofare" costs Americans far more than "welfare", as "city folk" don't destroy rangelands that wildlife like deer, pronghorn and antelope depend upon, government "free rides" to them don't cost nearly as much as "free range". Just the number of people killed by hitting cows on that "free range" when they're in highways far exceed human deaths and damage caused by "predators".

As to those "non-confirmed" kills by coyotes and wolves, I've seen those carcasses being "attacked" when the cow died while calving at 20 below zero out on the open public range, where ranchers put them to save money on grazing fees by calving on "winter range". Yep, wolves can jump fences, actually, so can cows! Not to mention how cows "magically" take down gates, or have "hunters" open them so they can go from licensed range, onto allotments they're not supposed to be on, or into wildlife and water exclosures where the grass is literally greener, and "tastier". It's funny how no sign of hunters is around months before hunting season, but signs of buckaroo activity show up around those "accidentally" opened gates.

Yes, with over 40 years out observing those rangelands, and wildlife as well as livestock, I understand the ranchers' "plight", especially when they ARE compensated for ACTUAL losses to wolves that can be proven. Now if they just had to pay for the damage their livestock has been proven, for decades, to have caused, or even those "range improvements" that decimate wildlife populations, migrations, and breeding grounds.

Many ranchers recognize that it is possible to raise cattle in an environmentally responsible way and still make a decent living. Todd Nash, unfortunately, appears to be one of the uninformed "the only good wolf is a dead wolf" ranchers. They can't be allowed to dictate Oregon's wolf policy.

I grew up in a ranching town. I spent my youth wandering the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I learned how to deal with rattlesnakes and other dangers. I didn't expect wilderness areas to be made into a theme park, nor did any of the ranching families I knew.

Wolves are wild. This scares some people.

Well, they should move to a condo in Portland if they are afraid of being around top predators like cougars and wolves. Where my wife and I live, cougars are known to roam. We enjoy this.

Sometimes I walk in the woods at night with our dog. If a nearby deer carcass is evidence of a cougar kill I'll be more cautious than usual. But I'd rather run the very small risk of being attacked by a cougar, than live in a world without wildness.

The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild, and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. . . .

September 25, 2011

Do you eat beef? If so, make sure it doesn't come from a rancher who belongs to the Oregon Cattlemen's Association (OCA).

This group appears to be committed to killing every single wolf in our state -- causing wolves to once again become an extinct member of Oregon's top predator ecosystem. If you don't believe me, take a look at the OCA Facebook page.

Friday's entry says "Good news for ranchers in Eastern OR," referring to a La Grande news story: Two Imnaha pack wolves to be killed after another confirmed livestock loss

Yesterday’s investigation scene showed clear evidence of a wolf attack. The large spring calf had been dead less than two days, yet was almost completely consumed, suggesting the entire pack had fed on it. The alpha female was observed near the investigation site the following day, and GPS collar data indicates the alpha male was with her at the time.

Let's leave aside the question of whether this truly is "clear evidence." (But it sure doesn't seem to be, since wolves feeding on a dead calf isn't proof that they killed it.)

Let's focus on some facts -- facts that should make anyone who cares about the environment, wildlife, and ecosystem preservation extremely angry at the Oregon Cattlemen's Association.

The OCA could have said that the wolf kills are unfortunate. Instead, there is a gleeful "kill all the wolves!" attitude among the association that represents Oregon ranchers. And they are damn close to succeeding, according to an Oregon Wild email I got today.

After confirming the loss of a cow to the Imnaha Pack on Thursday, the state publicly announced the kill order late Friday. We’re still working hard to try to stop them, but time is short and options are limited. The order will be easy to carry out. The alpha male wears a gps tracking collar and will be shot along with last year’s pup.

Earlier this year, in an effort to assuage the livestock industry and relieve local political pressure, the state killed two wolves from the Imnaha Pack. Another died shortly after being collared, and still others have dispersed. If this kill order is carried out, Oregon’s first wolf pack - which once numbered sixteen - will be reduced to two. Sophie – the alpha female named by the Wolf Pack in 2008– and her young pup will be left to fend for themselves.

Oregon will have killed six wolves in the last two years, and recovery has stalled. This will be the 4th kill during Governor Kitzhaber’s short tenure.

Two. That's how many wolves will be left in Oregon after ranchers succeed in their wolf jihad.

So this is why I say the Oregon Cattlemen's Association is on a jihad. It's not about money, but more like a holy war to them, except killing wolves for no good reason is unholy. Also, unnecessary. To the OCA, the natural world is an irritation for ranchers who want to raise cattle unnaturally.

The OCA is happy to accept "welfare ranching" benefits from us taxpayers, but also wants to be able to freely kill wolves who have returned to roam public lands in Oregon.

Well, Oregonians have a choice in what they eat. The more people recognize that the Oregon Cattlemen's Association is dedicated to extinguishing our state's wolf population, hopefully the less Oregon beef they will buy.

After reading the highly disturbing Oregon Wild email message, I immediately phoned Governor Kitzhaber's office and complained about the wolf-killing policy. I encourage you to do the same. Here's the number:503-378-4582. To email the Governor, click here.

This is how the Oregon Wild message ends:

The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association celebrated the [kill] order as “good news” on their facebook page over the weekend. For folks who value native wildlife, the news is anything but good. It’s disappointing to see a state that prides itself on its green reputation again turning to lethal control, bending over backwards to satisfy special interests, and ignoring those who value wildlife.

After Governor Kitzhaber signed a compensation bill earlier this year, you – Oregon’s taxpayer - will now be writing a check to one of the state’s most vocal anti-wolf activists while simultaneously footing the bill to kill most of what remains of Oregon’s first pack. We’ll stay on this and update you on what you can do.

PS – Take a moment to watch video of Sophie and her pup taken earlier this year. With winter coming on and anti-wildlife interests hungry for more “good news”, it’s going to be tough going for these two. Oregon’s remaining wolves are going to need all the allies they can get – please tell your friends about the Wolf Pack and encourage them to support Oregon Wild's work to ensure wolf recov.

September 23, 2011

The Salem Statesman Journal, for reasons known only to its generally right-leaning editorial board, went to court so the newspaper could release hitherto private information about the retirement benefits of Oregon state government workers.

My wife is one of them.

A few days ago she got a letter from the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) informing her that because of lawsuits filed by the Statesman Journal and Portland Oregonian, on November 21, 2011 her name and benefit amount will be made public.Download PERS Letter

Then, on March 9, 2012 anyone in the world will be able to learn my wife's retirement date, retirement plan, benefit calculation method, years of service, and final salary -- if this info is available from PERS's electronic database.

Why does the Statesman Journal need this personally identified information? I haven't figured that out.

Neither has a neighbor who cancelled his subscription after learning about our local newspaper's crusade to reveal intimate details about the legally-earned retirement benefits of himself and other PERS members.

He's deeply irritated at the Statesman Journal. So am I.

Neither of us can understand how the public interest is served by releasing data on individual retirees. If the newspaper, or anyone else, wants to study how the Oregon state retirement system works, I'm sure PERS would be happy to produce any sort of special statistical report desired.

So why is the Statesman Journal determined to reveal individual names and individual retirement benefits? Is this a matter of investigative journalism, or part of a crusade against public workers?

Salem's daily newspaper has been obsessed with the Willamette Educational Service District, which did something wrong some time in the past (can't remember the details; I got bored after the one thousandth, or thereabouts, breathless front page story about the ESD, especially since the Statesman Journal has never bothered to dig deeply into the much more expensive missteps of the three Repubican Marion County Commissioners who sat by and fiddled around while Courthouse Square became a useless $34 million debacle).

But when it comes to prying into individual PERS retirees' personal financial records, the Statesman Journal is right on it.

Again, why the need for making this info public? I wonder how the management employees of the Statesman Journal, such as publisher Steve Silberman, would feel about revealing to the world every governmental or tax benefit they receive?

After all, if individual information about PERS retirement benefits is public knowledge, why shouldn't we be able to know what tax credits or deductions Mr. Silberman and other members of the newspaper editorial board have taken advantage of?

And maybe some of their family members are on Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Perhaps a relative has gotten a student loan underwritten by the government, or benefited from some other public program. All of those details should be divulged, so readers of the Statesman Journal can know the extent to which newspaper employees are feeding from the public trough.

If that sounds ridiculous to Statesman Journal management, then why is releasing individual information about PERS retireee benefits any less ridiculous?

Qutie a few letters to the editor and online comments have expressed similar outrage about what the Statesman Journal is doing. Check out this, this, this, and this. Some excerpts:------------------------"After you post all your information on PERS retirees, I want to know all the names of welfare recipients, how much money they receive, how long they have been on welfare and if they are trying to get off taxpayers' dole.

"I would also like to know who, what, when and where people are receiving medical care on the taxpayers' dime.

"You might as well stick in the names and monies of anyone else who has received any taxpayer money (corporate executive, etc). I want to know exactly where my taxes are going."------------------------"I cannot believe the public should be told my name along with the amount I receive each month for my pension. Isn't that an invasion of my privacy and of every retired person? Why does anyone — aside from PERS and my yearly tax reports — need my name?

I think the public deserves to know the pension plan details, the position salaries, the number of years served and what those facts will provide for each pension, but also a reminder that I contributed to my plan each month through the 20 years I served."------------------------"If all PERS benefits are made public, then all people receiving any government aid should be made public."------------------------"There is something inherently wrong with a system that requires a search warrant to obtain financial records from banks but allows retirement payment information to be given to news sources.

I spent over 25 years serving the people of Oregon, representing the state and the agency for which I worked to the best of my ability. I took very seriously the role of "public servant," knowing my life would reflect on the state for good or ill. I really looked forward to having my privacy returned to me when I retired, but now that, too, will be fodder for public scrutiny.

September 21, 2011

If you live in the Salem area, here's two good reasons to attend a "Wheels and Wine" energy efficient wine tour tomorrow, Thursday September 22. It's sponsored by the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, and will feature...drum roll, please...

Our brand new Nissan Leaf! Shown here, getting its first charge in our carport after being driven home from the Jack Scoville Nissan dealership in Corvallis late this afternoon.

So Reason #1 is: Come to the event from 5 - 8:30 pm at the Santiam Wine Company, 1555 12th Street in Salem (details here, and below) and you'll get to see my wife and me showing off the Leaf. I'll be semi-prepared to answer semi-geeky questions, and fully prepared to share our first impressions of this fully electric car.

And Reason #2 is: Wine tasting. Energy efficient car browsing -- Volt and Prius, plus the Leaf. and maybe others. Support the Oregon League of Conservation Voters. Wine tasting (worth a second mention).

Here's a preview of the sort of fascinating Electric Vehicle geek'osity that I'll be sharing based on my extensive 24 hours of ownership experience with a Nissan Leaf:

I just went out to the carport to check the "Stats" function on the Blink charging system that was installed a few days ago free of charge by Cherry City Electric, thanks to Oregon's participation in a six state + D.C. stimulus-money-funded grant program.

The Leaf was fully charged when I left the Corvallis dealership. I drove 26 miles to our home in rural south Salem, going through Albany and then taking I-5 the rest of the way, where I drove 65 mph with the automatic climate control on, the day being warm.

It cost 63 cents to "refuel" the Leaf at our PGE electricity rate of 7.5 cents per kWh.

That's 2.4 cents a mile, a bit above the 1.9 cents a mile our car salesman, Russ Goodyear, told me he gets (Russ bought one of the first Leafs sold in this country). This likely is due partly to our home's rather high use of electricity, which kicks us into that higher "marginal" rate of 7.5 cents per kWh. Base rate is 6.7 cents, or thereabouts.

Even so, my trip home was the equivalent of our 2007 Prius being fueled with $1.06/gallon gasoline, since the Prius averages about 44 mpg in mixed rural/city driving. (Note: the Prius is for sale at a great price. Check out my blog ad.)

And the Leaf produces zero emissions. The Blink told me we just saved 6.89 pounds of CO2 emissions from being spewed into the atmosphere. Cool. Which the world needs, given the obvious effects of global warming.

First impression of the Leaf: Great. Come to the OLCV event tomorrow and I'll be glad to expand on that one word Leaf review. (After a glass of wine, I might be abnormally expansive.)

Here's the event details, copied from the OLCV web site:

-------------------------

The Marion County Chapter of OLCV is rolling out a new and different concept in wine tours! Join us for an evening of wine from local vineyards all over the region all in one easy location. What is the "Wheels" part, you ask? Well, you can stroll on out to the parking lot to take a gander at the most fuel efficient cars on the market in the region to see what is new and exciting in the realm of transportation.

We are holding this exciting new event on September 22, 2011 from 5:00 to 8:30 pm at Santiam Wine Company, 1555 12th Street in Salem promoting local wineries and energy efficient cars. Local auto dealers will have some of their most energy efficient cars on display. We will be having a tasting and silent auction of local wines.

September 19, 2011

Sesame Street should be proud of me. Look how many "S's" I used in my blog post title!

I stretched my alliterative mind muscles because the house party in honor of the Crag Law Center's 10th anniversary that I'm publicizing deserves to be noticed by people in the Salem, Oregon area who care about protecting our state's natural environment.

Without attorney Ralph Bloemers and the Crag Law Center our south Salem neighborhood couldn't have successfully fought the threat that a 43-lot subdivision posed to our ground and surface water.

So in addition to friends and neighbors, I'm spreading the house party word to other people in hopes that you'll join in saying "thank you" to a terrific public service environmental law outfit.

The house party is next Sunday, September 25, 4 to 6 pm, at the home of the Strong's -- who live at 360 Fawk Street SE (a block north of Hoyt, and a block east of Commercial). Here's a Google Maps link:http://g.co/maps/ef5jd

See below for a message from Margaret and Arnold Strong, and an invitation to the house party. Photographic art work of Oregon's natural beauty will be displayed. Wine will be served. And yes... there will be a low-pressure opportunity to make a donation to the Crag Law Center.

----------------------------Dear Friends,

Please join Arnold and I as we open our home on behalf of our dear friends at Crag. The Crag Law Center is celebrating its tenth anniversary of supporting community efforts to protect and sustain the Pacific Northwest's natural legacy.

Ralph Bloemers and Chris Winter have been our friends for eight years. Their work on behalf of the wild places and the great outdoors here in the Northwest has strengthened the richness of our wilderness areas and helped to keep this great place we call home as wonderful as it is. CRAG is preparing to defend our forests before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The artwork we will display in our home is a combination of new pieces that will be available at the Wild Shots auction in November and some of the Wild Shots that we have won at auction in years past.

We are delighted to feature these beautiful portraits of the life in the wild from Rainier to Hood, from the Oregon Coast to the Cascade Mountain range, from the roar of the Columbia River to azure of Crater Lake, from the Polar bears of Alaska to the pronghorn sheep of the high deserts of Oregon. This will be an event you will appreciate.

Help us to sustain the work of Crag Law Center by joining us. If you can't be with us at the event, please consider making a contribution to their work directly. Crag is a non-profit law center. Their work is made possible by the ongoing contributions of those of us who support their work. You can learn more here.

September 17, 2011

Would I ever get another opportunity to ask the President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Wayne Pacelle, a question about animal consciousness?

Almost certainly not.

So I stuck my hand in the air tonight when Wayne said that he'd welcome a few questions from the passionate band of local animal activists who'd assembled at Ted and Beverly Paul's beautiful home in the south Salem hills to meet Pacelle.

As soon as we arrived, I plunked down $27 to buy a copy of his book, "The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them." Thumbing through the Contents, I could tell that Pacelle melded science and ethics in his book.

His remarks, spoken without notes while standing in the Paul's living room, confirmed for me that -- not surprisingly -- this leader of the national Humane Society had a good command of both facts about animal welfare and the morality of mistreating them.

I toyed with the idea of asking a direct question about vegetarianism: whether a root cause of cruelty to animals is the disconnect between (1) the enthusiasm people have for eating animals (most of whom are raised in nasty conditions on factory farms), and (2) the disgust people feel when an individual identifiable animal is mistreated.

But I didn't want to risk antagonizing the kind-hearted meat-eaters with whom I'd shared an excellent meal, wonderfully catered by Willaby's, which featured no animal carcasses other than a salmon dish.

So here's what I basically said to Pacelle:

A comment and a related question. It seems to me that a central problem here is that people forget that we are animals. There aren't humans, and also animals. We also are animals.

Which gets to the question of consciousness.

I'm amazed to read in neuroscience books that some people question whether animals are conscious. Anybody who has a dog or a cat is certain that their pet thinks, has feelings, and so on. Our dog spends much of her day plotting how to get her way with me, and she does a damn good job of it.

Do you think that as neuroscience advances, as more and more animals are studied in brain scanning machines, and it becomes increasingly obvious that animals have a roughtly similar sort of conscious life as humans do, this will make a difference in how people view their fellow animals?

Pacelle responded with a thoughtful answer, most of the details of which I can't remember. He said that just as science has debunked the pseudo-science of phrenology, along with the notion that the white race is superior to other races, so will research continue to demonstrate that animals are a lot like us.

When Pacelle signed the book I'd bought, I mentioned to him that I'd recently listened to a Philosophy Talk podcast about evil. A psychologist who has done research in this area said that he doesn't believe something called "evil" exists.

Rather, people who act cruelly suffer from an empathy deficit. And of all the animals, empathy is most highly developed in us Homo sapiens. So I told Pacelle that what he said in his remarks tonight made a lot of sense:

Yes, humans are animals. But we are special animals who are capable of feeling a lot of empathy for both other members of our own species, and members of other species -- like chickens, cows, pigs, cougars, wolves, salmon, and so on.

Sometimes people defend cruelty toward animals (such as raising chickens in tiny cages where they can barely move, and can't raise their wings) by saying, "Animals in the wild kill other animals for food, so why can't we?"

Well, other animals aren't as highly evolved as us human animals. They don't have as much capacity for empathy, though elephants have been observed to engage in what sure looks like grieving behavior when one of the herd dies.

We should aspire to be the most moral animal species on the planet, not just another species "bloody in tooth and claw."

In a final chapter in his book, Pacelle lists "Fifty Ways to Help Animals." Here's the first one:

Follow the 3 R's of eating: reducing your consumption of meat and other animal-based foods, refining your diet by avoiding animal products derived from factory farming, and replacing meat and other animal-based foods with vegetarian foods as you are comfortable doing so.

September 15, 2011

I have many unanswered questions.I'm still trying to learn the meaning of life, what will happen to me after I die, and why the Kardashian sisters are famous (I do have a guess: they're famous for being famous).

But today I focused on a query assigned to me by Laurel, my wife. "WIll our dog, Serena, comfortably fit into the Nissan Leaf electric car that we're poised to buy?

We'd made a stab at answering this question during our first test drive, learning that the $250 cargo floor organizer included by the manufacturer on the car earmarked for us produces a dog-friendly flat area behind the rear seats -- which otherwise is marked by a cavernous hole.

But after taking another test drive yesterday, my wife came home concerned that the entire cargo area has less vertical room than our Prius when the rear seats are folded. So the question became, "Could our Lab/Shepherd mix stand up in the rear compartment?"

Surprisingly, a Google search of Nissan Leaf large dog fit turned up zero information about how other people had addressed this hugely important issue. It isn't exactly a car-buying deal breaker for us, but we want to be sure that the family pet isn't condemned to awkward crouching when she rides in the Leaf.

Scientific testing clearly was called for.

"I'll take Serena with me to the Corvallis Nissan dealership today," I told Laurel. "I'll measure the height of the cargo space in the rear compartment, comparing it to our Prius, and also put Serena into a Leaf to see how she fits."

Laurel wasn't sure whether the dealership would be wild about having a dog take a "test sit/stand." My attitude, though, was that car salesman probably have experienced weird customer behavior that far surpasses a simple request to see how our dog fits in a Leaf.

After all, we weren't bringing in a bunch of pigs to see how many could be crammed in the cargo compartment. Or a baby elephant.

As I suspected, when I got to the dealership one of the salesmen was happy to unlock "our" car, then stand aside and watch the experiment unfold. I folded the rear seats down, then took Serena's dog pad out of our Mini Cooper and put it in the Leaf to minimize the chance of leaving dog hair all over the car.

The first things I learned were (1) Serena was happy to settle down in the car, (2) So happy, I had no chance of taking a photo with my iPhone while she was still standing up after I'd lifted her into the rear compartment.

So now I knew what was already known: a 65 pound dog can lie down in the back of a Leaf with her head comfortably below the ceiling. But what if the dog stood up? Further experimentation was required.

Which brought me to realization (3): I knew how to make Serena sit by (no surprise) saying "sit," but I had no idea how to make her stand while I stood back, iPhone in hand, ready to take a photo of a standing dog.

"Stand, Serena, stand!" had zero effect. Pulling her up by the collar worked better. However by the time I dashed around to a door and snapped a photo, all I caught was a dog butt at the (appropriately) rear end of the cargo area.

This helped to confirm, though, what I'd already learned from a tape measure. Our dog is about 27 inches tall at the shoulder. The height of the Leaf cargo compartment is about 27 3/4 inches. So if Serena stood up, her body would come close to the ceiling, while she'd have to lower her head a bit.

(The height of the cargo compartment in our 2007 Prius, by contrast, is about 28 3/4 inches, an inch taller -- seemingly because the rear seats aren't as thick, because the rear seat head room in the two cars is exactly the same).

I was still determined to get a photo of Serena standing up close to the front seats. By this time the salesman probably had concluded that he'd already gotten all of the entertainment value from watching me try to maneuver our dog around in the car while clutching my iPhone, so he diplomatically said, "Maybe you'll have better luck if I'm not standing close by."

(Instead of, This is boring the crap out of me, which likely would have been closer to the truth.)

The photo above is a great shot of a dog resisting her owner's urging to stand up in a Nissan Leaf. Serena has her fussy face on as she settles back into a lying position after I got her to briefly semi-stand and rushed to click the camera app on my iPhone.

My next move was to back off from the car, stand by an open rear door, and wait for Serena to stand up on her own. This produced realization (4): our dog is willing to lie on her dog pad in a Nissan Leaf for a considerably longer time than I'm willing to stand next to a car in a dealership's parking lot, iPhone in hand, while customers and employees wonder what the heck is going on.

Eventually I gave up and snapped another photo of our dog stretched out horizontally, which told me nothing new about Serena's ability to comfortably stand up in the car, but at least made me feel that I'd hadn't completely wasted my time in the parking lot.

Moving to the rear compartment, I made a last stab at issuing "Serena, stand!" commands in my best Dog Whisperer voice. As you can see, by this stage in the experiment the family pet had decided to completely ignore me, as evidenced by her haughty German Shepherd'ish you want me to do what, sucker? look.

(Serena's personality is a blend of her Shepherd and Lab sides, independent/aloof while also good natured/gentle.)

In the end I got some good information, though no conclusive photograph evidence of our dog comfortably standing up in the back of a Nissan Leaf. I'm convinced that Serena would fit just fine in the car.

And while driving home to Salem I pondered the fact that when humans get into a car they crouch down before sitting down on a seat. So why are we even worrying about whether our dog can stand up in the car? What if we had a Great Dane? Would we have to buy a van for the dog to travel in, so it could stand up?

However, we probably do need to figure out how to put up a dog barrier in the Leaf that would prevent her from sailing over the front seats in the event of an accident, whether Serena is lying down or standing up.

Bottom line: for $34,795 (before tax credits) it is possible to give a 65 pound Shepherd/Lab mix a ride in a Nissan Leaf. Such is my contribution to automotive science based on today's research.

September 13, 2011

Life has a way of teaching me lessons, even though I have no idea who the instructor is. I mean, who the hell is this guy called "Life" anyway? Everybody talks about him, but I've never seen the dude.

Well, whoever or whatever LIfe is, here's what I learned today: don't assume; keep your cool; be positive about people until you can't help being negative.

This was a pretty weird experience, now that I think about it in the calm of a pleasantly cool September Oregon evening, blogging on our deck while listening to nearby crickets cricketing and distant owls hooting.

Last night somebody from Salem's Cascade Paving phoned and asked, "Is it OK if we pave your driveway tomorrow?" Whoa, short notice. We'd been bugging the company to tell us when the repaving of our crumbling driveway would happen, though, so I quickly said "sure, come on out."

When the first wave of guys arrived at about eight am (paving involves a lot of workers, trucks, and equipment), I made it a point to tell both the foreman and another guy about the phone line that runs beneath the driveway.

"No problem," they told me. "We're only removing some damaged asphalt before repaving; there won't be any digging down as far as the phone line."

OK. That made sense. I was reassured. I'd mentioned to them in a semi-joking fashion how important our DSL was to my life, so if our Internet connection went down they'd be the first to know.

Which, around noon, happened just as I'd feared.

I wondered why a web page wasn't reloading. Then I wondered why no web pages were loading. Then I picked up a phone, heard the silence of no dial tone, and wondered no more. The profanities that echoed through my brain were, thankfully, confined to my cranium.

But I was eager to dash out to the driveway and tell the Cascade Paving foreman that they'd cut our phone line and had damn well better get it fixed pronto.

I was filled with righteous indignation, because I'd just warned the workers about the phone line, and also had talked about it with the owner of the company who came out and gave us a bid.

Stomping out in my Teva sandals as best I could (it's hard to stomp in the very lightweight Zilch design), I found the foreman inexplicably using a backhoe to dig a hole in a brushy area on the left side of the driveway -- exactly where the phone line is buried on its way to our house.

What the hell? I thought. Why would a paving company dig a hole in our field when they're supposed to be working on the driveway? I walked up to the backhoe, which had a glassed-in cab.

The foreman stopped digging. He opened the window. "You cut our phone line!" I said. "We'll fix it," he told me. "Either we'll take care of it or we'll call the phone company." Then he shut the window and went back to working on the hole.

I looked into the hole. I saw a bunch of loose dirt, but no sign of the phone line. I figured it was covered up.

I stomped, sandal-wise, back to our house.

I wanted to phone the Cascade Paving main office to tell them how irritated I was. How could their guys cut our phone line when I'd told them exactly where it was??!! And what were they doing digging a hole in that field with a backhoe??!!

Fortunately, in retrospect, we have such crappy iPhone service where we live (thanks for nothing, AT&T) I kept getting cut off mid-rant each time I started to talk to the pleasant-sounding woman who answered the phone at Cascade Paving.

Eventually I figured that she'd gotten my basic message: Our phone line was cut and you need to fix it NOW!

I decided to drive into Salem where my iPhone would work fine and I could rant to Cascade Paving at my leisure on a strong cellular connection. Plus, I needed to do some grocery shopping.

Walking past the workers, I tried to be as pleasant as I could be, given how pissed I was that they'd trashed our phone line and DSL service.

Heading to my car, which I'd parked on Lake Drive, one of the workers said, "Wow, you've got some nasty yellow jackets out here. Everybody got at least one sting." Whoa. Time for mental reset. Adjust assumptions, adjust assumptions!

The foreman working the controls of the backhoe had been too busy to tell me what was going on. He was trying to protect his workers from getting any more stings. They'd figured out where the yellow jacket hole was, and were removing the nest with the backhoe -- which made sense, because walking up to angry yellow jackets with a can of spray in your hand isn't a good idea.

(My wife and I know a lot about dealing with yellow jackets; we're ruthless killers of them, if they're creating a problem around the house or on a path.)

Facts. Reality. Truth. These are useful. I need to give them more attention than I often do.

I'd assumed that our phone line had been cut for no good reason, that the Cascade Paving guys had done something stupid, that I was entirely justified to complain about going Internet-less for, oh-my-God!, hours.

Instantly, my understanding of the situation changed. I'd jumped to an erroneous conclusion. I could have said to myself, "I don't know why the foreman is digging a hole and cut our phone line; I should find out before I get upset with him."

But no, it was all too easy to bask in my hot tub of steaming indignation. I can't say that I enjoyed feeling aggrieved, put upon, victimized by incompetence. However, I felt a certain satisfaction in my (untrue) knowledge that I'd been right about being careful around the phone line, and the workers had been wrong.

Later that afternoon a Cascade Paving employee who I hadn't seen before knocked on our door. He told me that he'd be splicing the phone line. I said, "Hey, if you ever leave Cascade Paving, you can go to work for the phone company." He told me, "That's where I used to work."

Nice. I was feeling better fast.

I felt completly fine when he knocked again in a few minutes and asked if our phone was working. I checked. Yes, it was. How about the DSL? I hurried to my laptop. Yes, the DSL was working also. Life was back to normal.

Not without some lessons learned, though. I shouldn't have thought the worst of workers who previously had seemed highly competent. Plus, a neighbor expert in the ways of paving had hired Cascade Paving to handle his own driveway. He'd told me that the crew who worked at his house was careful, skilled, personable.

Just as the guys who did our driveway work were. I was led astray for a while, though, by failing to realize that what seemed so obviously correct to me actually was wrong.

Hmmmm?

Could I be wrong about other things that seem obviously correct to me? Jeez, I hope not. That'd be even more disturbing than losing our Internet connection for an afternoon was.

September 11, 2011

[Our car has been sold. Sorry, would-be Prius buyers.Disappointingly, the couple who bought the car learned about it via an AutoTrader listing, not this blog post. We ended up selling it for $16,000, which is about what I expected to get -- once I realized that nobody was going to pay $1 million for a 2007 Prius Touring, unless it was made of gold.]

I've never wanted to be a real-life car salesman, but it's kind of fun to play one in a blog post...

BUY, BUY, BUY! -- THIS CAR WON'T BE IN OUR DRIVEWAY FOR LONG!Wow, a 2007 Prius Touring with only 36,500 miles for hundreds less than the NADA clean retail value of $18,175!

Only $16,495. Gosh, my wife and I are almost giving away this car.

Plus, it's got brand new tires -- a recent gift from the Toyota Lifetime Tire Replacement deal that came with the car when we bought it new.

We're getting a Nissan Leaf, an electric car that will move us up the Green Food Chain. So the Prius has to GO, GO, GO!

Check out the car's details on our Auto Trader ad. Or, our Craigslist ad. The CarFax vehicle report is here. This is one CLEAN CAR -- CarFax says it is worth $160 above retail book value.

But we're asking hundreds less than the NADA clean retail value of $18,175. Why? I don't know... I guess we're crazy! Come see us and buy the Prius before we regain our sanity.

This isn't a regular old Prius, it's a Touring model. Better suspension. Tighter handling. Larger spoiler. HID headlights. You can trick this baby out even more and be the envy of a high school parking lot.

Oh, did I mention automatic climate control? And check this out: cup holders! Along with a steering wheel!

It's in great condition -- just one small ding on the front passenger side door, which we've accounted for in the asking price. And that simply adds character to the car, like Cindy Crawford's mole. Kelly Blue Book says our Prius is in "Good" condition.

September 10, 2011

Us bloggers believe in giving businesses praise when praise is due, and also publicizing buying turn-offs. So here's how I just replied to an email from Salem (Oregon) Nissan.

I'd gotten a message from Salem Nissan asking if we were still in the market for a car that included this request:

If you are no longer looking or would like to be removed from my follow-up list, please send a quick note to let me know.

I did just that, saying "We're buying a Leaf from the Corvallis Nissan dealer, so you can take us off your follow-up list." When I was asked why Corvallis, rather than locally, I responded with:

CJ, I appreciate your asking the question that you did: why are we rural south Salem residents purchasing our Nissan Leaf from the Corvallis dealership, rather than locally? Here's the explanation:

Salem Nissan was the initial dealer we requested a quote from. In fact, it was the initial dealer twice, because after we received a go-ahead from Nissan Central that it was possible to take action on our Leaf reservation, we contacted Salem Nissan, then changed our mind about getting a Leaf, and then changed our mind about changing our mind -- contacting Salem Nissan again after we'd decided to get a Leaf.

(As you know, Nissan Central only allows prospective Leaf-buyers to contact one dealer at a time.)

After Salem Nissan was contacted, several "turnoffs" transpired. First, I was told that it wasn't possible to test drive a Leaf, or to even see a Leaf at the dealership. I told the salesman, with more than a little incredulity, "So this means that we're supposed to fork out $35,000 for a car that we've never driven, nor even seen in person?"

He explained that all Leafs exported to this country were earmarked for consumer purchase, so dealers couldn't get an "extra" car to have as a demonstrator. I have no reason to believe that this is untrue. However, after we did additional research we learned that both the McMinnville and Corvallis Nissan dealerships had Leafs that could be seen and driven (reportedly at McMinnvile a Leaf even could be taken home overnight).

In Corvallis, the main Leaf salesman/expert purchased one of the first Leafs to be sold in the United States (#3, I believe). I'm pretty sure this also is true of the McMinnville Nissan dealership, as we've heard that the Leaf salesman/expert there also is a early owner of a car, along with being an enthusiastic proponent of this pioneering electric vehicle -- and EV technology in general.

At the Salem dealership, by contrast, I talked with someone who was neither highly knowledgeable nor enthusiastic, and certainly wasn't a Leaf owner himself. So it was a breath of fresh air to tell Nissan Central that we wanted to switch from the Salem to the Corvallis dealership, and then to hear from the Corvallis salesman, "Yes, we have a Leaf you can drive. And if it isn't available, you can drive my personal car."

We've been told that the Corvallis dealership has sold over fifty Leafs. I don't know how many Leafs your Salem dealership has sold, but I suspect it is in the single digits. Which brings me to another reason why we didn't buy a Leaf in Salem.

When I told the salesman at your dealership that we really needed to test drive a Leaf (this was before we learned that such was possible in Corvallis and McMinnville), he offered to contact the first people in Salem who got a Leaf and ask them if they'd be willing to show us their car. This seemed a bit strange to me -- shouldn't a dealer be able to show prospective buyers of a $35,000 car a demo vehicle without enlisting the aid of a customer? But I said, "Sure, give them my name and phone number."

I never heard from the Leaf owners, who turned out to be a couple in west Salem who are avid environmentalists. Several times I reminded the Salem Nissan salesman about this, and he kept assuring me that he'd given the early Leaf owners my name and that I should be hearing from them. Again, I never did. Throughout, I wrongly assumed that they had purchased their Leaf from Salem Nissan.

Eventually I remembered that our local newspaper, the Statesman Journal, had published a piece about these early Leaf adopters. (A Google search showed that some "green" blogs had also linked to the newspaper story.) So it wasn't difficult to find their names, look in the phone book, and give them a call.

I've talked with the woman of the family several times. She is highly enthusiastic about the Nissan Leaf. She also is highly negative about Salem Nissan. This probably explains why she ignored the request from the Salem Nissan salesman to phone us. I was told that she and her husband initially contacted Salem Nissan about buying a Leaf, but found the dealership uninformed and uninterested in the car. They ended up having a very satisfying buying experience at the McMinnville Nissan dealer.

Look: buying a Leaf, or any electric car, is a whole different experience from buying any other vehicle. My wife and I have had lots of questions, anxieties, worries. We couldn't have gotten over the electric car-buying hurdle without sales advice that was well-informed, honest, and personable. Plus, it helped a lot to be talking with a salesman at the Corvallis dealership who owns a Leaf himself and knows the car's idiosyncrasies first hand.

If Salem Nissan wants to be a player in what hopefully will be a rapidly growing and evolving marketplace, your dealership needs to commit to this electric vehicle. Enthusiasm is contagious. Customers can tell when a car salesman doesn't know much about a car he/she is trying to sell. Most people interested in an electric car are environmentally aware, scientifically/technologically literate, and turned off by a traditional car-selling approach.

Here's a final comment along that line: both times I contacted Salem Nissan, I asked for a quote by email -- what the cost of the Leaf equipped as we wanted would be, and what the monthly lease payment would be if we went that buying route. Both times I got a phone call from the salesman, even though the second time I asked for a quote I emailed Salem Nissan and said "Don't call me; email me; I want a written quote."

Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"? This is a whole other subject: what turns people off about car dealerships and the car-buying process.

Today I talked with several guys at a neighborhood garage sale about this. We agreed that when car salesmen play games with a customer, it is a major turn-off. All three of us agreed that walking away from a dealership when this occurs is not only justified, but essential. Unfortunately, we also agreed that car dealerships in Salem tend to be considerably less buyer-friendly than dealerships in some other nearby towns (like Corvallis, Albany, McMinnville).

Hopefully Salem Nissan will get its electric car act together. I'm confident that electric cars have a bright future in Oregon, especially since our state is one of six with a grant to build Level 3 (fast) charging stations along major highways.

September 07, 2011

Driving home this evening, I tuned my car's satellite radio to MSNBC. I wanted to hear at least a little bit of the Republican presidential debate in Simi Valley, California.

If I'd heard more, my head might have exploded -- the rhetoric was that ridiculous. I couldn't understand why the audience didn't laugh out loud at some of the answers candidates gave to questions.

For example, Ron Paul ranted on about the uselessness of building a fence along the Mexican border to deter illegal immigration. He said that this fence could just as easily keep people in the country, not allowing them to leave.

Huh?

I wasn't aware that there were throngs of American citizens clustering at the border, trying to make their way to Mexico without a passport, desperate to escape the hell of an Obama economy, a tall fence being the only thing keeping them inside the United States.

“Every time you think about this toughness on the border and ID cards and REAL IDs, think it’s a penalty against the American people too. I think this fence business is designed and may well be used against us and keep us in. In economic turmoil, the people want to leave with their capital and there’s capital controls and there’s people controls. Every time you think about the fence, think about the fences being used against us, keeping us in.”

Michelle Bachmann didn't think it was in our national interest to help the Libyan people get rid of Gaddafi.

Ignorantly and wrongly, she said Obama was forced by the United Nations to intervene in Libya. Actually, it was Obama and Hillary Clinton who skillfully put together an international coalition to defeat Gadaffi, choosing for the U.S. to "lead from behind" to avoid giving Gadaffi a boost by enabling him to say, this is another example of American imperialism, just like Iraq.

Jon Huntsman was the only Republican presidential candidate who sounded like a normal rational human being. It's too bad that his web site sucks, and he's only polling at about 1%, last I heard.

That sounds about right: one in a hundred Republican primary voters appreciate moderation, intelligence, courtesy, honesty, and science. On most issues I don't agree with Huntsman, but I respect how he presents his views reasonably and rationally.

When Huntsman announced his candidacy I was worried that he could be a tough match-up against Obama in 2012. He could appeal to a lot of independent voters who are more conservative than my wife and I are, yet haven't lost their senses by imbibing too much Tea Party crap.

Fortunately for Obama, the leading Republican presidential candidates won't appeal to middle-of-the-road voters.

It was a breath of fresh air to hear Huntsman talk about how the Republican Party can't deny the reality of global warming when 98 out of 100 leading climatologists affirm that human-caused climate change is happening. Huntsman also -- shock! -- committed the heresy of saying that he believes in evolution.

We live in disturbing times.

It's absolutely crazy that no one is capable of winning the Republican presidential nomination unless he/she is anti-science and pro-creationism. But the good news for us progressives is that it won't be possible for a wacked-out Republican nominee to beat Obama in the general election.

Yay! Four more years! Thank you, Tea Party. You're going to hand Obama another term, even in a terrible economy, because you dominate the Republican primary process.

September 05, 2011

Me, little blogger Brian, is going to explain why the Oregon Ducks, ranked #3 in the country for a frustratingly brief time this 2011 football season, lost ignominiously to the LSU TIgers last Saturday.

(The final score 40-27, doesn't reflect how badly the Ducks were dominated by the Tigers.)

My qualifications for this feat?

I've never played organized football at any level. I watch a lot of college football on TV but haven't gone to a live game for decades. I know next to nothing about the intricacies of play calling, defensive and offensive strategizing, all that X's and O's stuff.

But I know what I feel. And watching the Oregon - LSU game a few days ago left me feeling that the Ducks offense has caught a serious case of uncertainty.

Last season the Ducks were like a hurry-up-offense force of nature. I could feel the power, the confidence, the attitude of you can't stop us. Once the offense got rolling, the speed with which they ran plays obviously disconcerted the opposing defense.

I could tell how quickly the Ducks were playing by how often, and how much, I needed to press the "back six seconds" button on my DirecTV DVR after pressing the "forward 30 seconds" button after a play was called dead in order to avoid announcer blather; usually a college team takes almost exactly 30 seconds to get the next play underway, but with the Ducks I'd usually have to rewind to catch the beginning of the play.

But at the end of last season, especially in the BCS Championship game, and notably last Saturday, quarterback Darron Thomas habitually engaged in start-and-stop behavior that struck me as seriously disruptive to the offensive flow.

Everything would look fine as the Duck offense lined up for a play. I'd think, "Quick, run the play, keep the pressure on." But instead:

Thomas would look toward the sideline. Then quite a few Ducks would get out of their stance and do the same thing. Thomas then would jog up to various players, apparently whispering "this now is the play" words in their ears. Or maybe he was telling them what kind of pizza he planned to eat after the game. I don't know.

Regardless...

This got really old after a while. I didn't keep track of how often the Ducks failed to run their usual speedy offense, but it was a high percentage of the plays. I'd watch the play clock and realize that this supposedly hurry-up offense was taking almost the entire time available to them.

So what's the point of all this (1) get-ready-for-the-play, then (2) get-out-of-the-ready-for-the-play stance, followed by (3) talk-it-over-while-the-LSU-defense-calmly-looks-on?

It made the Duck offense look more than a little ridiculous, especially when after all this hemming and hawing the play would net a whole two yards, or whatever.

Whoopee. (I believe the Ducks had less than 100 yards rushing for the entire game.)

Now, I don't really know what Thomas and the rest of the Duck offense are doing when they stand up, look over toward the sideline, and apparently peer at the strange cards held up to indicate the play.

Back in the old days, I recall, quarterbacks called the play in the huddle, usually on their own. Then the offense would break the huddle, get in their stances, and run the play.

Sweet and simple. Also, clear and confident.

My impression of the Oregon Ducks football team, v. 2011, is that it's become too obsessed with cuteness. Not exactly in an appearance sense, though there's some of that too (the uniforms worn in the LSU game didn't project a sense of macho toughness, but rather isn't this a slimming look?

LSU, like other SEC teams, and like big powerful teams from other conferences that regularly beat up the Ducks in crucial games, simply outmuscled and outplayed Oregon.

Razzle-dazzle, running backward to go forward, carrying the ball in one hand, fancy option fakes/handoffs -- the Ducks were really cute. But especially now that other coaches are deeply familiar with Oregon's offensive style, cuteness isn't going to cut it.

I hope the Ducks offense gets back to its previous version of smash-mouth football. Oregon won't ever look like a southern or mid-west team filled with 300 pound muscled human hunks of corn-fed beef. The Eugene vibe is too organic for that.

But most of the time, at least run your damn plays without looking like you're changing your mind. Less cute and more cutthroat, then maybe you'll go 11-1 this year.

September 03, 2011

So there we are today, looking over a blue 2011 Nissan Leaf, all 100% electric and high techy, wondering if we should go ahead and buy the car after putting down a $500 deposit on it upon learning from Russ Goodyear at Corvallis' Jack Scoville Nissan that a Leaf could be ours much sooner than expected, owing, I believe, to someone cancelling an order for this car.

Russ is ready to show us its technological marvels, and let us take our first test drive, but first Laurel needed to closely inspect the car's dog friendliness. How comfortably and safely would Serena, our eleven year old, 65 pound, Lab/Shepherd mix, ride in a Leaf?

Nissan engineers probably didn't factor this concern into their design process. But my wife expressed worries about the cavernous "hole" in the rear luggage area. Yes, the rear seats could be folded flat. Our dog, though, wouldn't fit on them. Apparently she'd have to curl up in the hole, which didn't look too appealing to us.

Russ, astute salesman that he is, recognized that a $35,000 sale (before $7,500 federal and $1,500 state tax credits) of perhaps the most futuristic car made today might hinge on how well a dog could fit in it. So he fetched the Leaf cargo box accessory and installed it while we looked over the car.

This produced a nice flat area behind the rear seats. However, the hatchback opening is high compared to our 2007 Prius, and even with the Prius we have to help our aging dog into the car.

Laurel preferred the idea of having Serena get in through a rear door and travel on the folded rear seats. Now, though, a new problem surfaced: the gap between the front of the seats and the back of the front seats. Our beloved family pet could slip a leg or two into the opening with possibly injurious results.

Russ thought that a "sling" was available for the Leaf similar to a device we have in our Prius. It covers up the gap between the folded rear seats and the front seats, producing a continuous dog-friendly surface in the rear compartment. We're going to look into this.

Once our dog concerns had been addressed, Laurel got in the driver's seat and I crawled in the back. Russ told us about Leaf features from the passenger seat as Laurel cruised around.

We were curious about how the car sounded, having read that some people are bothered by the whine of the electric motor. (A low speed sound alert system can be shut off with a button push, but the motor obviously can't.)

My hearing isn't as good as Laurel's is, especially when it comes to high frequency sounds. Laurel and the comparatively youthful Russ could clearly hear the sound of the motor, especially as the car accelerated. To me, the Leaf had a barely noticeable "distant jet plane" sound at times which wasn't at all bothersome.

I also got to drive the Leaf. Quite a bit actually, because Laurel wanted to concentrate on motor noises while I cruised up and down some Corvallis hills as Russ offered driving directions. The interior is appealing.

I like how the Leaf handles. The heavy battery in the mid-section of the car helps make it feel stable in turns. The car has a "zippy" feel, even though the 0-60 time must be mediocre. Press on the "gas" (rather, accelerator pedal) and the Leaf zooms forward with surprising quickness.

We experimented with the Leaf's Eco mode. This seemed to add about eight miles to the car's predicted range when it was turned on. Acceleration is mushier, though still acceptable to Laurel and me.

Surprisingly, the car's display showed a range of 85 miles when we left the dealership, and it had barely changed by the time we returned in half an hour or so. My "range anxiety" diminished quite a bit after I saw how clearly the Leaf's electronic displays let you know about what's going on with the battery.

Here's one thing we learned from our test drive: Leaf owners are hugely enthusiastic. When we walked into the dealership, a couple of guys who owned Leafs were chatting with each other while one of their cars got a 240 volt Level 2 charge (which takes quite a bit of time).

Walking up to them, I said that we had a deposit on the blue Leaf and were trying to decide whether to purchase it. One of the men, who looked to be in his 70's, loudly proclaimed, "If you leave without buying that car, you're making a big mistake!"

I liked their contagious enthusiasm about all things Leaf'ish. I soon got the sense that Leaf owners become part of an electric car "cult," and I'm using that term in its most positive sense.

Namely, a pioneering group who are happy to be blazing new gasoline-free trails, even when this involves some difficulties.

For example, apparently there is only one Level 3 fast charging station in Oregon (30 minutes for an 80% battery charge), so one of the guys who lives on the Oregon coast was spending several hours at the Nissan dealership as his Leaf got enough juice for the trip home via a Level 2 charger.

Level 3 charging stations soon will be built along Oregon's I-5 corridor and elsewhere, though. The electric car revolution has just begun. I like the idea of being part of the first wave of pioneers. Hey, cults can be fun!

Next week we'll come to grips with our Nissan Leaf buying decision, maybe after Cherry City Electric comes out and confirms that our garage is suitable for a free Level 2 charging station, which would make buying a Leaf several thousand dollars less expensive.

September 01, 2011

I greatly admire forest firefighters. Watching four or five large semis filled with equipment take a wrong turn in Camp Sherman, Oregon a few days ago doesn't lessen my admiration for them in the slightest.

It just shows that they're human.

(Maybe these guys hated to stop and ask someone for directions, like me; or the government needs to fork out a few bucks to get them a GPS app like Navigon for their iPhones, which I have -- and love.)

Tuesday my wife and I were at our co-owned forest service cabin in Tract C along the Metolius River, which is near a bridge over the river, a mile upstream from the Camp Sherman store.

That morning I'd ridden my bike to the store along the unpaved road to get a newspaper. Paying 75 cents for the Bend Bulletin I noticed a stack of flyers on the counter. It was a Shadow Lake Fire Update, describing the status of a forest fire in the Mt. Washington wilderness, which isn't too far away.

I picked up a flyer to show my wife. I read it quickly, noting these paragraphs with mild interest:

Due to fire location and complexity, Agency officials have made the decision to bring in a National Incident Management Organization (NIMO) and a Long Term Assessment Team to assess potential long term fire behavior and spread along with fire suppression organizational needs. The Incident Management Team from Central Oregon (Travis Moyer) will retain command of the fire, until further assessments have been finalized for longer term needs.

Incident Command Post (ICP) will be located at Allingham Guard Station; as a result there will be increased traffic along Forest Road 14. With Labor Day weekend approaching motorists are being asked to drive with caution.

That afternoon Laurel and I were sitting on the deck of the cabin, idly looking toward the little-used dirt road along the Metolius that leads to the Camp Sherman store.

Suddenly a convoy of impressive semi trucks -- silver, sleek, powerful -- zoomed up the road in a loud cloud of dust. We'd never seen any truck that large on the forest service road, much less several of them in a purposeful line.

I didn't get my iPhone out right away. But they looked the same leaving as coming.

At first we had no idea what was going on.

There weren't any obvious markings on the trucks. The scene was kind of surreal, like a disaster movie where a peaceful pastoral landscape is transformed by the incursion of unmarked government vehicles out to combat an alien invasion.

I was sure that we'd be detained, never to be seen again, once one of the agents noticed that they were being observed from a nearby cabin.

However, I calmed down a bit when the convoy came to a stop as the lead truck reached the end of the one lane bridge over the Metolius River. I had a sense that the semi driver was trying to decide whether his truck could safely make it over the bridge (which probably was the case; see below).

This pause in the action spurred my wife and me to get our binoculars. I could barely make out lettering that said something like "Fire Management Team." This was reassuring, alien invasion-wise, yet disconcerting for another reason.

That word, "fire."

There weren't any in the immediate vicinity, so far as we knew. Yet five large semis filled with some sort of fire equipment were heading our way. What did they know that we didn't?

Actually, the truth was that we knew something that they didn't. Namely, that the Allingham Guard Station is reached by turning left on a paved road at the Camp Sherman store, not by turning right up an unpaved road that has a sign saying "no turnaround for campers."

The next morning I told a clerk in the store about how we watched the convoy of trucks pull up to the bridge, and how the lead truck went across, then parked, and eventually backed up into our cabin's dead end road to laboriously turn around, while the other semis also turned around with considerable difficulty on the other side of the bridge.

"One of those trucks went across the bridge!" she told me. "Wow. Even the school bus doesn't cross that bridge. It's not designed for large trucks. When we saw them going up that road, we wanted to run out and wave our hands, yelling wrong way, wrong way!"

The clerk said that the trucks were on their way to set up at the Allingham Guard Station, a campground downstream of the Camp Sherman store, but somehow made a wrong turn and headed upstream on the dirt forest service road.

I said to her, "You'd think that firefighting professionals traveling in five giant trucks would have a decent map with them, or at least good directions, plus a GPS device. After they got to the bridge I saw the drivers congregate, seemingly trying to figure out where they were and how they could get to where they needed to go."

At the time I briefly thought about walking over and asking them if they were lost. But knowing how much it irks me when my wife says, "I think you made a wrong turn" when I'm driving, I quickly dismissed that idea.

They figured things out on their own eventually. The trucks convoyed back down the road in a cloud of dust just as impressive as what they made going the other way.

Like I said at the start, what I learned is that firefighters are human. They can get lost. They can make mistakes. Just like everybody else. This made me feel closer to them. I felt a bond with them, watching them turn those big impressive trucks around on a narrow dirt road.

I just hope none of the drivers had his wife with him. I could picture her sitting in the passenger seat, telling him "I told you to turn left at the Camp Sherman store!"